“But now that he was here, he was happy. It wasn’t an uncomplicated kind of happy, but still. Something about the warm atmosphere, the way Cormac’s family teased him the same as they teased each other, fussed over him and brought him drinks, included him seamlessly in their conversation, just…recognized him.”

“No, I chastised myself. I should be happy for him. I’d let him go. I’d turned down his request to be with me, so now I had no room to judge who he chose to be with. I needed to be happy for him, but I wasn’t. Knowing he was laughing and smiling with someone else, that he was flirting and teasing someone who wasn’t me ignited a feeling inside me that I’d fought so hard to bury. Suddenly, I was drawn to him like I hadn’t been in years, and I couldn’t ignore it.”

“He was uncomplicated and upbeat and easy. At one point, I might have thought these traits made him a simpleton, but now I think they just translate to happiness.”

“Once, when Tom was over here, to tease Rose, I asked him, "Before she was born, can you remember? Were things just the same as they are these days? Did it still rain and get dark and all the stuff it does now? Did the sun go up and down in exactly the same way?" Yes," Tom said, and then he smiled at Rose and said, "No. Not really. Not exactly the same way.”

“My purpose, my whole life, had been to love him and be with him, to make him happy. I didn’t want to cause any unhappiness now—in that way, I decided it was probably better than he wasn’t here to see this, though I missed him so much at that moment the ache of it was as bad as the strange pains in my belly.”

“He’s safe, I repeated to myself over and over again. But even I knew it wasn’t the truth. For now he was safe, but they’d find him. Eventually they’d find him, they always do. I was supposed to protect him. I was supposed to keep him alive. Instead I’d brought him directly into the lion’s pit.”